Vigilante Killing As Career Move
The North Ossetian government said Friday that Vitaly Kaloyev — who murdered an air traffic controller he blamed for the plane crash that killed his family — would serve as the republic’s new deputy construction minister.
Kaloyev might be well qualified for the job. After all, he is an architect who ran a successful construction business in Spain before his family died when their Bashkirian Airlines plane collided with a DHL cargo jet over southern Germany on July 1, 2002. His wife and children were on their way to spend their vacation with him in Spain.
Qualifications aside, however, the decision to give him a government job sends the wrong signal to Russians and the West.
Kaloyev tracked down Peter Nielsen, the sole air traffic controller who was watching the airspace over southern Germany that night, and stabbed him outside his Swiss home in October 2005.
Kaloyev testified in court that he became angry when Nielen refused to acknowledge any guilt in their deaths. He said the last straw was when he showed Nielsen photographs of his family and Nielsen, while gesturing, accidentally knocked them out of his hands.
His actions were wrong, but understandable. Swiss judges said as much when they gave him a relatively mild sentence and decided last year to release him early for good behavior.
His trial and homecoming were broadly covered by state-controlled television channels, with people giving him a hero’s welcome both in Moscow and in his native region, North Ossetia. Moscow’s reaction to the whole affair seemed to suggest that Kaloyev was the latest Russian citizen to be picked on by the West.
The attention and subsequent offer signals that a person can commit an “honor killing” in line with the North Caucasus tradition of carrying out vendettas and not only avoid being punished at home but be awarded a senior government post.
Rather than do that, the authorities should do everything possible to encourage people to abide and rely on the law for justice.
For those who might think positively of this story, imagine what would have happened to Kaloyev if he had killed an air traffic controller in Russia rather than in Switzerland.
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